American Reacts to How the German Government Works

Willkommen! My name is Sean Huggins, an American living in Germany. Watch as I learn about German culture and life in Europe!

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[JimbalayaJones]

Greetings from Lower Saxony!✌️

I think the system itself is pretty good and I think it reflects a good mix of society. Of course, citizens sometimes feel that what is happening in such a system is strange or too slow. However, it has often been shown that a decision is then made that is acceptable to the majority of people.

When it comes to US politics, I often have the feeling that there are two camps and it reminds me a little of a trench warfare. Three steps forward, then two steps back... It's sometimes sad to see how much it incites citizens against each other in many areas.

[lorenzsabbaer]

the president has to sign every law. and he can refuse that, which happend 4 times in the history of the bundesrepublik deutschland <3 much love from germany

[petrlorenc]

OK: not personally from Germany, but it's safe to say the german constitutional order works very well. And they technically don't even have a constitution 😀

[jensschroder]

The Chancellor is the second man in the state. He is commissioned by the president to lead the government. He makes decisions, but many of them have to be approved by Parliament.
Many laws have to pass through the second chamber, the Bundestag. The heads of government of the federal states sit in the Bundestag

[BlackWater_]

6:03 Yeah, the Bundesrat isn't locally elected or elected at all for that matter.

A: The Bundesrat consist of representatives appointed by the state governments.
B: The state's government are obviously elected (indirectly) via state elections, not local ones.

[Georg-jziv]

The watched video tried its best to explain the German election and governing system. And honestly it reflects the system better than the regular German knows it. That said, the German elections are complicated in detail but can be summarized in comparison to the USA very easily. (One complication for example is that every federal election is done in 16 parts, means in every of the 16 federal states is a local result based on the local list regarding the elected persons and that must be made fit together at the end.)
But now the easy part: the German electorate is represented by parties proportionally to the results of the Zweitstimme (second vote). In the US you vote for a person with winner takes it all (which is technically like the German Erststimme except that it is mixed in the ruling Zweitstimme).
The German chief of Goverment is the chancellor who gets elected by the absolute majority of the Bundestag, the first body, which also passes the laws. The absolute majority is free to elect another chancellor at every time if it wishes.
In the USA the chief of Goverment is the president, elected separately from the law passing bodies. You can argue that this leads more often to a dysfunctional governing than in Germany.

[jensschroder]

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has two tasks.
On the one hand, a dispute can go through all instances and end up before the Constitutional Court. Sometimes the Constitutional Court also says that the case is important and should be decided before the European Court.
These two courts then instruct the lower courts how to decide a case.

On the other hand, someone may complain that a law or draft law violates the constitution.
The Constitutional Court then decides independently on the case.
In rare cases, the Constitutional Court even decides that a regulation or law is no longer applicable and must be changed. Then politicians must accept this and either delete the law or rewrite it. Courts are then no longer allowed to apply the old law until it is changed.

[RustyDust]

Seats in the Bundestag are ALWAYS given as per the percentage of votes the party received in the Bundestag, no matter if they win or loose. The overhang mandates are a bit complicated to calculate. If a party's representatives received enough votes for at least THREE direct candidates from local counties/Gemeinden but not enough overall votes to exceed the 5% minimum of all total votes, these direct candidates DO receive their seats in the Bundestag. But now those parties that DID receive the 5% or more percentage of all votes would underrepresented. So their total number of seats gets upgraded to re-establish the percentage representation equal to the percentage of votes they received. Yeah, I know, difficult, complicated, cumbersome. But it seemed to be the only fair representation of both small local parties with exceptionally well liked candidates as well as full averaged representation.

[LarsPW]

The US "tought" us to have a governmental system like that we have in Germany after the second world war. To have a supreme court (in Germany: Bundesverfassungsgericht seated in Karlsruhe) with the capability to reject laws if they are unconstitutional is an innovation of the US we share with them. As well the representation of the German states (Bundesländer) on the federal level by the Bundesrat reminds me of the US senate in Washington.

But after the second world war we avoided a presidential system like that of the US because the governmental system in Germany after the first world war degraded to some sort of this. When Germanys electors voted for a war hero of the first world war he eventually brought Adolf Hitler and his Nazis into executive power with the known results. So the aspect of the balance of power had been more valued after the second world war in Germany and I think the US president is far too powerful in the US system.

[BlackWater_]

4:20 *NO, NO, NO!* He specifically does *_NOT_* have the power to dissolve parliament!
That's the equivalent of saying that the office of President of the United States is hereditary.
The lesson learned from living under the British monarchy was that the top office of the land should NOT be hereditary and it's the same here: The lesson learned from the failure of the Weimar Republic was that the President should NOT have the power to dissolve parliament on his own, not even parliament itself has that power.

Here's what needs to happen for the Bundestag go be dissolved:
1. The Chancellor has to ask the Bundestag to give them a vote of confidence.
2. The vote of confidence has to fail.
3. The Chancellor has to ask the President to dissolve the Bundestags within 21 days of the failed vote of confidence.
4. The President agrees that the Bundestag should be dissolved.
5. The Bundestag does not vote a new Chancellor into office. (read: Art. 68 I GG)

So essentially the Chancellor, the Bundestag and the President all have to work in tandem to dissolve the Bundestag.

And while we're on that topic: No, the President also doesn't have the power to just veto laws.
Yes, he has to sign bills into law but no, the can't just refuse to unless they're formally unconditional i.e. haven't actually passed a vote in the Bundestag (and in some cases the Bundesrat) that's it. Again, he CANNOT just veto laws.

[Jon-cbdt]

They vote for whom can give them understanding of the war and law others wish to maintain

[MichaEl-rhkv]

Germany did well with coalition governments - nearly all federal governments of the last 75 years were coalitions, so no party could simply march through. Governing parties can't go extreme.
Federal elections are every 4 years, but most states switched to 5 years election period. Every state however decides for itself when to do the elections - in 2023 e.g. Bremen had elections in May, Bavaria and Hesse have state elections in October, in 2024 there will elections for the EU parliament at June 9 (and about 9 states will also hold municipal elections at the same date), while Saxony and Thuringia will hold state elections at the 1st of Sept. and Brandenburg at the 22th of September. The delegates in the Bundesrat are not elected directly, but sent by the state governments.
The Bundestag (Federal Parliament) and Bundesrat (Federal Council) are the two chambers of legislation (but the Bundesrat can only veto in such legislative fields which affect the defined competencies of the states); together they form the Bundesversammlung (Federal Assembly) which elects the Federal President. Since the Bundesrat is smaller however than the Bundestag, the states send additional delegates into the Federal Assembly until the numbers are even.
According to protocol the Federal President holds first rank and the Chancellor third rank. The second rank goes to the president of the Bundestag, who is also president of the Federal Assembly.

[jensschroder]

The president's job is to oversee democracy. He appoints the chancellor and ministers. If the government is no longer able to function, he can dissolve the Bundestag and call for new elections. He can refuse to sign laws and submit them to the Supreme Court for review. Or he signs laws so that they come into force. In addition, he can issue dismissals for life imprisonment.
He also receives state guests and kings.
His role is roughly comparable to that of the British king. But he is not elected for life.

[olgahein]

Yeah, it's complicated. But it works - for now. You see, Germany has had many systems. We had an empire, a kingdom (actually, many kingdoms), a dictatorship, we were ruled by the church, by the army, by a foreign senate, we had communism and we had anarchy. We had once a similar government system like the US with the president having similar power and that ended in WW2. We kinda came to the conclusion that it's not wise to give one person and one group too much power. It's not a foolproof system at all, and it changes once in a while: there was once a minimum percentage of votes (5% of the votes) that a party had to get to be part of the government but that was then abolished and it can happen that a party will only have one seat and one voice in the government.
Also, the parties shown in the video are just the big ones. We have dozens of parties to choose from and also individuals that don't belong to any party (not uncommon for local elections and for the position of the president).

[emiliajojo]

This guy probably had a german girl, traumatizing him during winter.😅

[jancleve]

6:30 Hust, hust 12 years are nothing. Supreme court in the US is for life dude.

[rumpelstilzchen]

when you vote in Germany you always make two crosses, one for the party that you most like and one direct candidate one, maybe you like a person to represent you but not necessary the party as such. Therefor you have two votes in Germany. Merkel for example won a view times but a different party had more seats.Oh and last but not least, prisoners are also a lout to vote.

[wigglywuf]

greate videos sadly i can´t watch them because the video sound is to quiet and your mic to loud

[Jon-cbdt]

The president of the United states independent of all others makes decisions that effect everyone, President